Delicious Irony

I just finished reading Jerry Muller's "Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism" in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. It's a solid article, and I'll be posting a critique before too long, but I couldn't help but chuckle as I read the concluding paragraphs, which summed up why Muller thinks that parochial ethnic nationalism will remain a powerful force in contemporary politics. On the opposite page sat an advertisement for the Center for Global Affairs at NYU with the headline; "As a global citizen, to whom do I pledge allegiance?" Who ever said social scientists don't have a sense of humor?

In Praise of the Serbian Foreign Minister

Vuc Jeremic, the foreign minister of Serbia, has an op-ed in today's Times criticizing the willingness of the West to go along with the independence of Kosovo, writing that to accept Kosvo's independence is to abjure the binding principles of the postwar international system, principles that "include the sovereign equality of states, the respect for the territorial integrity and the inviolability of internationally recognized borders." Mr. Jeremic is absolutely right. The independence of Kosovo does indeed alter the involability of those principles, and it's about damn time.

While I'm sure Serbians aren't particularly happy about being the test-case for the slowly emerging post-Westphalian international order, the fact is that the notion of self-determination of peoples is slowly catching on as a countervailing force to state sovereignty in the twenty first century, particularly when governments don't live up to their "responsibility to protect" their own citizens. In a world as economically, politically and culturally interdependent as ours, it makes little sense to hold the notion of sovereignty, formulated in 1648 as Europe climbed out of the Middle Ages, as sacrosanct in the same manner it was so held a century ago.

This, of course, brings up a whole boatload of difficult questions. Would I be okay with a state seceding from the U.S. (I suppose it depends which one you're talking about...)? 140 years ago America fought a vicious civil war to prevent just such an eventuality. What is different now? Hypothetically, what process would make such an act legitimate? Perfect answers, of course don't exist. That is the nature of living in transitional times. Important philosophical pillars of the international system must remain in tension. As a matter of principle, though, I do believe that when a sub-state group's experiences - of isolation, of oppression, of coercion - render it no longer meaningfully attached to the political community that it is supposed to inhabit, it has the right to see such separation institutionally enshrined. Kosovo has done this. Along with the Serbian foreign minister, I suspect that it will be followed.

The Planning of "Ethnic" Violence

Today's BBC has a worthwhile article pointing out Human Rights Watch allegations that much of the "ethnic" (I'll explain the quotes in a second) violence ravaging Kenya is being planned and directed by political elites there. Again, worth reading, but hardly surprising to anyone who has looked at historical patterns of communal violence.

The nature of media coverage of such strife is a persistent complaint of people who study ethnic conflict and ethno-nationalist politics. By framing violence as "ethnic," without adding much context to the term, reporters unwittingly frame it as a result of ancient, hardened, immutable social divisions that spontaneously flare up from time to time (I - along with many others, prefer the term "communal," because it leaves open the possibility for boundaries to change). Furthermore, by using the word "riot" to describe the actual incidents, reporters conjure up images of pent-up anger, randomly exploding into wanton destruction (in the context of Africa, it also unwittingly reinforces racist stereotypes about tribal conflict). Recent history - from the Kristallnacht to the Rwandan Genocide to the 2002 Hindu-Muslim clashes in Gujarat - has shown that such violence is nearly always planned and directed by communal elites. "Pogrom" might be a more appropriate term.

The extent to which elites are responsible for such action (and, conversely, the extent to which the people "on the street" who actually engage in much of the destruction and killing can be viewed as sheep who follow their leaders blindly) remains a matter of debate. Personally, I'm not willing to pin all the blame on those who stoke the conflict. The dynamics by which communal identity is constructed and directed are too complex for such simplistic explanations. Still, it is good to see that some media outlets finally point out the calculated nature of communal violence.

Barack Obama

Let me be clear, I don't mean to spend very much time on this blog writing about the U.S. Presidential election. For one thing, it is still more than a year away, for another, this blog is meant to be about global politics writ large, not the slings and arrows of American electoral wrangling. Still, the President of the United States remains by almost any reasonable estimate the most powerful individual on Earth, thus it seems reasonable to devote a bit of space musing about how the various candidates would handle themselves in office. Barack Obama, evidently making an effort to dispel the notion that he is all fluff and no substance, recently gave a foreign policy address at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. I must say I'm fairly impressed, though the speech does not appreciably add to his thoughts on international affairs outlined in the Senator's most recent book The Audacity of Hope. Obama seems to be, at least in rhetoric, a sensible leader in the making. Seth Weinberger gives the Senator's speech mixed reviews, in particular on Iraq and military reform, but I take serious issue with some of his criticisms:

First, there is increasing evidence that the surge is paying dividends. It's too early to claim that it's working, but it does seem to be creating the possibility of success in the future. It's clear that Congress is not going to stand up to the president's veto and try to enforce a hard withdrawal deadline. What's not so obvious is how the tune changes when a presidential candidate becomes president... Candidate Obama may want to bring the boys home, but President Obama will see that decision in a different light.

Paying dividends? Hardly. It is instructive that the first article Dr. Weinberger cites to support his case, from the Washington Post, paints a picture far more grim than positive. The one American strategy the article cites as creating some progress - that of walling off neighborhoods - has recently been roundly rejected by the local population and Iraqi government (such as it is). The grizzly details, the killings, the suicide bombings, have not appreciably slowed down, certainly not when Iraq is taken in aggregate rather than reduced to events in Baghdad. A somewhat more sobering assessment was offered recently in a Washington Post op-ed by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. A few highlights:

The problem is that for every welcome development, there is an equally or even more unwelcome development that gives lie to the claim that we are making progress. For example:

• While violence against Iraqis is down in some Baghdad neighborhoods where we have "surged" forces, it is up dramatically in the belt ringing Baghdad. The civilian death toll increased 15 percent from February to March. Essentially, when we squeeze the water balloon in one place, it bulges somewhere else.
• It is true that Sadr has not been seen, but he has been heard, rallying his followers with anti-American messages and encouraging his thugs to take on American troops in the south. Intelligence experts believe his militia is simply waiting out the surge.
• Closing markets to vehicles has precluded some car bombs, but it also has prompted terrorists to change tactics and walk in with suicide vests. The road from the airport to Baghdad may be safer, but the skies above it are more lethal -- witness the ironic imposition of "no-fly zones" for our own helicopters.

The second article Weinberger cites is taken from The Weekly Standard. Enough said. The fact is, there is simply no way our military or citizenry can or will countenance a large troop presence in Iraq for years to come. The United States will be out of Iraq shortly into the next presidency, the only question is how we will leave.

I certainly don't think Obama's approach to Iraq is perfect. For one thing, while he acknowledges that a political solution is necessary in order to leave Iraq in a state of something other than genocidal anarchy, he offers no such solution. I happen to believe that a loose federal arrangement, what David Brooks has called a "soft-partition," presents the best chance for success, but irrespective of whether or not the Illinois Senator agrees, he needs to present something.

As for Obama's proposal to increase the size of our military, it is not a bad idea per se, though once again I must vehemently disagree with Dr. Weinberger's comments:

...the military doesn't just need to grow, it needs to do so smartly. The US military is clearly sufficiently large and well-equipped and trained to deal with a traditional military threat. Now, the US military needs to develop a nation-building capability. The needs of nation-building are not the same as combat, and the US needs to be capable of both.

The only reason the United States would need to transform its military into a "nation-building" institution (by which I assume Dr. Weinberger means a military capable of fighting large-scale counter-insurgencies, propping up governments, building national infrastructure at high speed, winning the trust of the local population in the context of a long occupation etc.) would be if we were planning on repeating the Iraq experience. While I strongly agree with Senator Obama that Americans must not turn inward in disgust from the Iraq experience - the world needs responsible U.S. leadership more than ever - we ought not focus on increasing our capacity to act as a nineteenth century colonial power. Our military must be able to respond to large scale conventional threats, and it must have the kind of flexibility to conduct low-level special forces operations and play advisory roles against shadowy terrorist networks (as it is currently doing with little fanfare in the Philippines), but the army's post-Vietnam decision to turn away from counter-insurgency and large-scale occupations was the right one, and it ought to be reinforced by the Mesopotamian debacle.

Overall, Obama (along with several other Democratic candidates) seems ready to revive the kind of muscular, pragmatic liberalism that the United States sorely needs to embrace in the coming years. I am impressed, though not awed, by Obama's vision. I hope elements of it make it into the White House, whoever its next occupant may be.

Iraqi Oil

An English-language summary of an op-ed piece in Al-Hayat, which cites a recent report by IHS inc. regarding potentially undiscovered oil reserves in Iraq caught my eye today. First off, let me say I treat the report with some healthy skepticism. While I have no expertise whatsoever in the science of the oil industry, I have read enough to know that first-glance estimates of oil reserves often prove to be inflated to say the least. That said, the notion that significant oil may exist in 'Sunni territory' is heartening, though not for quite the same reasons espoused on IraqSlogger.

While I think the oil law wending its way through the Iraqi government is a step in the right direction in terms of handing over control of resources to local governments, the notion that the current US-supported government in Baghdad will be able to set policy in that manner strikes me as a bit far-fetched. The prospect of more evenly-distributed oil resources does seem to open the way towards the kind of loose federal system that increasingly seems to be the only possible positive (ish) conclusion to the madness in Iraq. If the three main ethno-sectarian groups in Iraq feel that they have a measure of economic independence from one another, it may make some kind of peaceful coexistence possible. One key quote by Mohamed Zine caught my eye: "...given a stable political and civil environment, Iraq has the potential to produce four million barrels a day in the near term..." I have long felt that Iraq's oil resources would be difficult to exploit any time in the near future because their uneven distribution would guarantee that political instability would be too high for complex, high-tech oil extraction and distribution infrastructure to operate effectively. If, however, the various sectarian groups could essentially operate their own oil infrastructure (with the Shiites shipping it out of the Gulf, the Sunnis pumping it through Syria and the Kurds pumping it through Turkey), it might provide the basis for separate functioning economies that could provide the necessary environment for a federal system to function. Granted, all of this would be quite a feat given the current grizzly state of affairs in Iraq, but one can always hope.

As for the other bits of Raghida Dirgham's op-ed, I find it interesting that he criticizes Fouad Ajami's 'Shiite victory' discourse as divisive and beneficial to Iraq's enemies by attacking his ethnic roots and calling him, in essence, a self-hating Arab. How does Mr. Dirgham's column not fuel precisely the division he is trying to combat? In any case, as an American armchair blogger who does not even speak Arabic I don't feel qualified to wade too deep into the particulars of an ethnic tiff halfway around the World. Just my initial reaction.